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Guor goes to the Olympics!!!

That's awesome that the IOC is letting him compete after qualifying last year despite not having an Olympic body representing South Sudan. Wish he could have competed for the US squad, but he only has permanent residence here, not citizenship.

That's awesome that the IOC is letting him compete after qualifying last year despite not having an Olympic body representing South Sudan. Wish he could have competed for the US squad, but he only has permanent residence here, not citizenship.

that is a good story!

regarding him competing for the US, even if he was qualified as a citizen to do so, he probably wouldn't have made the team - top 4 finishers qualified with sub-2:10 times, with 22 having times sub-2:15.

“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened.”
– Norman Thomas, American socialist and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America

Re: Guor goes to the Olympics!!!

Originally Posted by CyPride

that is a good story!

regarding him competing for the US, even if he was qualified as a citizen to do so, he probably wouldn't have made the team - top 4 finishers qualified with sub-2:10 times, with 22 having times sub-2:15.

He also ran under the Olympic qualifying time in his first ever marathon, and has run faster since. Who knows what he'll put up now that he's training for this event specifically.

Kinda surprised there's nothing on cyclones.com about this. I know XC isn't huge, but he'll still be at the Games and was a standout as ISU...

Re: Guor goes to the Olympics!!!

There is a another Cyclone connection in that the person most responsible for the creation of South Sudan, John Garang, got his PhD in economics at Iowa State. His undergraduate was from Grinnell.

Garang was the leader of rebel forces in a war that lasted over 20 years.

Under the terms of the peace agreement, in 2005, Garang was named 1st vice president for Sudan, the country as a whole. More than two million people lined the streets of the capital city, Khartoum, to see him take office, Garang's first return to Khartoum in over two decades. Tragically, less than a month after taking office, Garang died in a helicopter crash, at night in bad weather near his ranch home. The helicopter was the president of Uganda's, a friend of his. Foul play was ultimately ruled out.

The day his death was reported, the article was at the top, front page center in the New York Times, with this photo above it -- inside his home with two soldiers guarding the entrance:

Rebel soldiers in New Site, Sudan, guarding the body of Vice President John Garang, a rebel leader, which was draped in the "New Sudan" flag.

(A much smaller article that same day reported the death of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd just to the right of the one on Garang.)

Per the terms of the peace agreement with the north (a peace that is still tenuous), South Sudan was formed just last year based on the results of a referendum in the south.

Guor will surely be running with a great deal of pride. Given the history of the Olympics, particularly in relation to war, perhaps some of the history here will be reported on and played up. At a minimum one would think Guor's will be.

Re: Guor goes to the Olympics!!!

Incredible story, and good for him not representing a country that has so deeply affected his family just to compete in the Olympics. You see stories like that WNBA player playing for Russia or wherever it was with no real sense of identity to the country. Thrilled that he gets to compete.

If the ideals of the Olympics as expressed in its charter still ring true in any way, the most resonant moment of the last Summer Games was the sight of Lopez Lomong, a refugee from civil war in the Sudan, carrying the U.S. flag into the opening ceremony at Beijing's Olympic Stadium.

There could be a similarly uplifting moment the final day of the 2012 Olympics involving another refugee from that conflict who, like Lomong, is a runner who wound up in the United States after growing up in what was then the southern part of Sudan but is now part of an independent country.

If Guor Marial is able to run in the Aug. 12 London Olympic men’s marathon, it will represent a triumph of the human spirit as dramatic as the one featuring Lomong ...

The link will probably work a time or two, but it may ask you to register for access, which is free. Or you could try Googling the title -- "For South Sudanese marathoner, Olympics would be the ultimate refuge." It looks like the same article was in other papers, like Sioux City's, but perhaps abbreviated some.

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